


Sleepwalker

by SectoBoss



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Dreamworld, Gen, Possession, Spirits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-18
Updated: 2016-04-18
Packaged: 2018-06-03 02:37:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6593254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SectoBoss/pseuds/SectoBoss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mikkel had always dismissed tales of ghosts as superstitious nonsense. One night in the tank, Reynir is able to change his mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sleepwalker

Another night beneath the dreamworld’s starry sky. Reynir sat on a small hillock in his haven, tracing idle patterns in soft Icelandic loam, just glad to relax after another long day.

He stifled a yawn and stretched. Even in his dreams he could get tired, it seemed. He still wasn’t sure how any of this worked, how this place related to the real world. If he stayed awake here, would he still be tired in the morning? If he picked up some of the soil beneath his feet and put it in his pocket, would he find it there when he woke?

If he was hurt here…?

He pushed that last thought away and yawned again. Best not to tempt fate, he thought as he lay back on the soft grass and closed his eyes.

From far away came a sharp _crack._

Reynir opened one eye, sat up, look around. Nothing. Green grass and cloud-speckled blue sky stretched away from him to a too-close horizon. Sheep dotted the land around him like clouds that had given up trying to float.

Another _crack_ reached his ears and he felt some unpleasant feeling tug at his chest. He looked around again – still nothing, although some of the sheep were starting to bleat nervously – and then, on instinct, he looked up.

There was something above him.

He caught the briefest glimpse of some black, billowing mass above the dome of his haven’s sky, leering down at him through cracks in the air, and then everything happened too quickly for him to react.

The thing above him drew back a shapeless limb and slammed it down a third time onto the fragile barrier that kept his haven safe. The protective magics shattered like an eggshell. Reynir yelped in panic and dove to one side, covering his head as shards of clear sky rained down on him. He felt the gust of displaced air and the _thump_ through the ground as something fell down and landed heavily. Before he could do anything he was gripped around his midsection, cold claws digging into his back. He flailed madly and tried to free himself but the world span crazily as he was tossed around in the thing’s grip.

Like a broken doll he was carried towards the edge of his haven, leaving scars in the soil where his fingers fought for a handhold. The mass of shadows hoisted him high above its head and then, as he screamed in helpless fear, smashed him out through his haven’s walls, out into the dreamworld beyond.

Cold water hit his face, forced its way down his nostrils and throat, burned his lungs. He did not sink but instead floated half-submerged, gasping and spluttering, trying to right himself as the water became alternately solid and fluid around him, trying to stand.

Above him, the thing that had invaded his haven watched him with a measure of cold contempt. And then, as he watched dazed and bleeding, the front of its head split open in a massive, jagged crack. It took Reynir a moment to realise it was smiling at him. No, _grinning._

With a complex gesture the thing wound up the magics of Reynir’s haven around it, collapsing and fading them. Before his eyes his haven slowly shrank and vanished, leaving barely a ripple in the water where it had once been.

Battered and broken, with icy water slipping between his lips, Reynir’s vision began to fade.

 

* * *

 

Mikkel didn’t sleep much these days.

That in itself was nothing new. Several years in the army and several more on a farm – where the strangest things could go wrong in the middle of the night – had taught him to survive on little sleep. But now it was different. He wasn’t sleeping because he didn’t need to. He wasn’t sleeping because he didn’t want to.

He still wasn’t sure what had happened that evening in the tank when he and Sigrun had suddenly collapsed and Tuuri had made a run for it. His training as a medic told him that it was probably just a few stressful days catching up with them, or some food he hadn’t cooked properly, or one of a hundred other things. And yet, he wasn’t so sure.

He couldn’t remember much of what he’d seen. But one moment he had been in the tank, and the next he had been… somewhere else. Metal floors, metal walls, but more open. A slight breeze carrying the ocean’s salt tang. The stronger copper smell of blood. Soft, wet meat in his hands, needle and thread, cauterising agents. Haz-masks and rash sores and a thousand different screams. For a moment he had gone back to Oresund Base, the morning after Kastrup.

So now, with the rest of the crew asleep, Mikkel stayed awake. Sat in the driver’s cabin of the tank watching the almost-full moon slowly track across the night sky. Just a little nervous that if he went to bed he might go back again.

Or, be _taken_ back, by something he had no words for. After what Tuuri, Reynir and Lalli had told him, he was not as certain as he had once been.

From behind him there was a soft rumble as the door was pushed back, and then the _click_ of it closing again. Someone padded around behind him and sat down in the chair beside him.

Mikkel glanced over. Long red hair shone in the moonlight but Reynir’s face was angled away from him, hidden in shadow.

“Can’t sleep?” Mikkel asked.

There was a pause. “Don’t need to,” the lad answered at last.

“I told you people get nightmares in the silent lands, didn’t I? It’s normal. You’ll feel better if you go back to bed.”

“Said, we don’t need to.”

Mikkel was tired, bleary-eyed. He didn’t notice the odd choice of words.

They were silent for a few moments. Eventually Mikkel broke the silence.

“Reynir…” he began. The boy seemed to quickly stifle a laugh. “Reynir, what do you know about spirits?”

“Well, they say Danes can never see them, no matter how obvious they are.”

 _Well isn’t that helpful_ , Mikkel thought, and then something made him sit up with a start. He replayed the conversation they’d just had in his head, his tiredness falling away as shock and confusion took its place, and looked at the boy with wide eyes.

He had been so tired he hadn’t even noticed.

Reynir was speaking in Danish.

“What the-” he blurted out and then whatever else he was going to say rolled back down his throat as Reynir turned to look at him. Moonlight illuminated his face, made his pale skin shine and picked out his freckles. But it didn’t reach his eyes. Shadows as deep as the ocean’s depths swirled there like smoke.

“Not even when they’re staring you right in the face,” Reynir grinned.

Panic stuck a knife in Mikkel’s spine. He jerked back.

“Not even when they’re tearing your armies apart,” Reynir added, with a gesture out of the tank’s window towards the ruins of Kastrup beyond.

“Reynir, this isn’t funny-” Mikkel started with a growl, still desperately wanting to believe there was an explanation for what had come over the lad.

“Reynir Árnason’s not in at the minute, but if you’d like to leave a message…” Reynir said, and laughed softly. “Sorry. Old world joke.”

 _“What’s going on?”_ Mikkel demanded.

“Shh, not so loud. Best if no-one else hears us.” Reynir shot a theatrical glance over his shoulder and leaned in. The shadows in his eyes twisted and billowed. “How long has it been? Ten years? At least. You look a little different now, Mikkel, but we still remember you. We watched you, and all the rest of you under General Jensen’s command.”

“How do you know that name?” Mikkel hissed.

“General Jensen, _Vice_ -Admiral Olsen, Captain Ibsen, Sergeant Stefansen, Jakob, Magnus, _Alma…_ we know a lot of names, Mikkel.” _  
_

Each one was like a blow to his gut, the past reeled off the lips of the boy sat beside him. He stared, dumbfounded, as Reynir watched him slowly put two and two together. _  
_

“Okay. You’ve made your point.” Mikkel said at last, through gritted teeth. “Let’s say you are… what I think you are. _What do you want?”_

Reynir – or the thing in Reynir – rolled his neck and sat back in his chair, looking out at the ruins.

“You and your friends are going where you’re not wanted,” he said at last. He shot a poisonous glance at Mikkel. “This is not your land anymore. Your people gave it up when you abandoned us, all those years ago.”

“You want us to leave?”

“No. We want you to serve as a warning. To anyone else your people might want to send.”

His words were like ice.

“You’re going to… what, kill us?” Mikkel asked. His mind was racing. There was a gun under the dashboard of the tank. Sigrun had left it there for emergencies. He wondered if the thing in Reynir knew that, if he could get to it in time, if he could bring himself to use it if he had to.

“Not unless you force us to.”

“What, then?”

Reynir gestured out of the window. “These old buildings hold secrets. There are things in this city that would make even your captain grow pale. Things that would make the cowards in Rønne and Reykjavik stay behind their walls for the next hundred years.”

He turned back to Mikkel. “We want you to find them.”

“What?”

“We’ll find ways to contact you. In the days ahead. We’ll give you places, names, locations. Go there, see what is… taking shape there. And then run, Mikkel.” Reynir smiled. “It’s very important that you run.”

“And if we don’t?” Mikkel asked. “I don’t command this expedition, you know that. Sigrun doesn’t listen to me at the best of times.”

“Not our concern. If we have to act directly, we will.”

Mikkel hadn’t expected the dead to be ones to veil their threats.

“But if you do as we ask, we can reward you.”

For a moment Mikkel was convinced he had misheard. “What could you _possibly_ do to ‘reward’ me?”

Reynir didn’t answer, not directly. Instead, the shadows that pooled in his eyes flowed out and down, covering his face like a mask. The new face shifted and changed, and all of a sudden Mikkel was looking ten years into the past.

Magnus, the chef with a booming laugh and an infectious sense of humour, who had introduced a young healer to the endless fun of winding other people up. Jakob, the young tank driver who everyone was convinced cheated at cards but was just too likeable for anyone to call him out on it. Clara, the private who had stories from all over the known world. And Alma, _dear gods it’s her, it’s her_ , Alma who he had once bought a ring for but who had been lost in Kastrup before it ever arrived.

All these faces flickered before him in a second and then they were gone. The shadows retreated and Reynir’s face shone in the moonlight again.

“No-one taken by the Rash ever really dies, healer,” he said. “We can find ways to give back those you lost.”

Mikkel didn’t say anything, his mouth dry and his heart racing.

“We’ll be in touch.”

There was a sensation of something huge and dark rushing by, and then Reynir slumped forward in his chair. When he looked up again, blinking in confusion, his eyes were emerald green once more.

 

* * *

 

Reynir woke with a start, coughing water that wasn’t there out of his lungs.

He was in the driver’s cabin of the tank, sat in one of the chairs. Something loomed over him and he pulled back instinctively before he realised it was just Mikkel, looking at him with concern.

“Reynir? Are you... are you alright?”

Reynir groaned slightly and nodded. “I think so. What happened?”

Mikkel paused for a moment.

“You were sleepwalking,” he said at last. “I brought you in here to keep an eye on you until you woke up.”

“Oh. Umm… thanks, I guess.”

“It happens.” Another pause. “Do you… remember anything?”

Reynir thought. Water and shadow, falling away from him by the second like his dreams always used to. “No,” he said. “Don’t think so. Why? Oh no, I didn’t talk in my sleep, did I?”

Mikkel’s expression became unreadable.

“You didn’t say a word.”


End file.
